Electrolysis
by Juliana Brandagamba
Summary: [ONESHOT] When Starbug crashes (again), Kryten takes this opportunity to give the crew a bit of a chemistry-lesson. It does not end well.


**I wrote this a few years ago in a GCSE Chemistry revision-lesson. Luckily my teacher watched _Red Dwarf_ ; she now has a copy of the original, which was in the form of a script. This is my attempt to turn it into narrative. **

* * *

The four passengers of _Starbug_ were getting a sinking feeling. The sort of feeling you get when your spaceship is out of control and you're heading for the surface of a rocky planet at some unthinkable speed. Not a good thing. And the crew knew it. But quite frankly, they'd crashed so many times before now that they were almost used to the heart-stopping moment when the ship hovered in mid-air, the breathtakingly terrifying fall, the almighty suddenness of the –

CRASH.

Okay, maybe they would never be used to that bit.

A few seconds after impact, a head poked out from beneath the pilot's seat. Lister. He inspected himself, found himself and his dreadlocks to be intact and looked around at the others. Rimmer, being a hologram, was unharmed; the Cat was purring angrily and smoothing out a crease in his trousers; and Kryten was already checking the scanner, which was still working.

'Kryten, this is your fault!' snapped Rimmer when he had got his breath back.

The mechanoid turned. 'Mine, sir?'

'You said that everything was pip and dandy.' Rimmer shot a glance out of the window. 'Then our main fuel-tanks fell off and are now in orbit around this hell-hole of a planet.'

'Oh, sir!' Kryten went into guilt overload.

'Smeg off, Rimmer,' muttered Lister, coming over to see what was going on. 'Kryten, what's the damage look like?'

'The craft is intact, sir.'

'There must be some way of re-starting it,' Lister said. 'Come on, Krytes. Think!'

'Well... I don't know if it would work, sirs...'

Kryten looked over the read-out from the scanner, hesitant about giving his opinion following Rimmer's outburst.

'What would?'

'Well, the scans suggested that there is a concentrated sodium chloride solution on this planet. There may be a way to make fuel from it.'

Lister was intrigued. 'What is it, Krytes?'

'Electrolysis.'

'Electro- _what_?' asked the Cat, bewildered.

'Electrolysis, sirs. Kryten dived into an explanation. 'It involves two electrodes, a cathode and an anode, and involves passing a current through so that two substances can be separated owing to charged ions being attracted to the electrodes. When the reaction is complete, the positively charged ions will be reduced at the cathode, and the negatively charged ions –'

Rimmer shook his head. 'OK, lost you.'

'Oh.'

'Kryten, man,' said Lister, 'explain it to us as if we were complete smegheads.'

At this Rimmer laughed. 'You mean you're not?'

'Right.' Kryten came away from the scanner and prepared himself for hand gestures and diagrams. When he spoke again, it was much slower. 'Two pieces of metal, sirs.'

'Right...'

'One is positively charged. It's called the anode.'

'With you so far,' Lister assured him.

'One is negatively charged. It's called the cathode.'

'Got you.'

'They are connected to a power supply, and placed in the sodium chloride solution.'

Rimmer glanced fearfully out of the window. This was a hostile planet, dusty and dark, with sharp ridges and forbidding-looking lakes. 'Who will collect the sodium chloride solution?'

'It will have to be you and me, sir, as we don't need to breathe oxygen,' Kryten told him.

'Knew that was coming,' muttered Rimmer.

There was a pause. The crew members had just realised how long they had been talking; the Cat voiced their collective fear. 'How much oxygen do we have, buddy?'

A flurry of typing; Kryten practically pulled the read-out from the scanner. When he read it he appeared relieved. 'Four hours, sir. More than enough. What was I saying?'

'Something about a power supply?' volunteered Lister.

'Ah yes. Well, when the power supply is turned on, the negative chlorine ions are attracted towards the positive electrode, or anode.'

'Got you.' Rimmer nodded feverishly. 'Probably.'

'Then the positive sodium ions –'

Rimmer put up a finger. 'One question. What's an _ion_?'

'Come on, Rimmer. Everyone knows what an ion is,' Lister lied.

'It's the most important invention in history, Bud!' the Cat exclaimed.

Rimmer rolled his eyes. 'Not that sort of iron, you smeghead.'

Not wanting an argument to flare up – it would be a waste of oxygen – Kryten silenced them with a wave of his hand. 'An ion is a charged atom, sirs. – So, the positive sodium ions are attracted to the negative electrode, or cathode.'

'So how do you make fuel from it?' asked Lister.

'You don't. Not yet. I'm not finished, sir.' Kryten tried to stay calm. 'Then at the positive electrode, or anode, chlorine gas is given off.'

'So we burn that and make fuel?'

Lister's comment caused Kryten's politeness chip to overload. 'Be quiet! I haven't finished!' And then: 'Oh, sir! I'm so sorry!'

'Just finish, Kryters,' snapped Rimmer.

'At the negative electrode, or cathode, the sodium will react with the water to make sodium hydroxide.'

Lister narrowed his eyes. 'Where's the water from?'

'The sodium chloride solution, sir. Brine, or salt water.'

'Oh. Right. Sorry. Carry on.'

'This reaction gives off hydrogen gas, which we can collect and use as fuel.'

'Great!' cried Lister, jumping up. 'Let's do it.'

Kryten stopped him. 'Ah, sir...'

'What?' asked Lister warily.

'This is, of course, purely hypothetical.'

Rimmer sighed. 'What the smeg are you on about?'

'Ah, well –' Kryten looked embarrassed. 'We don't actually have any electrolysis equipment.'

'Oh...' murmured Lister.

'And really,' Kryten conceded, 'we could just use the secondary fuel-tanks, sirs.'


End file.
